Feeding A Dream
by Tastychainsaws
Summary: "Yui-senpai, where did you go? Why did you leave me here without telling me where you went? I miss you so much that it hurts, please just give me some sort of sign so I can keep clinging onto this distance hope. I'd even face death itself to be with you."
1. The Dream

**FEEDING A DREAM**

**PART 1**

**THE DREAM**

**BEST READ AT NIGHT**

_**Azusa**_

Azusa's eyes flickered open in the light of the early morning. She sat up, rubbing the last remnants of sleep from her weary eyes. Her eyes found the date on her alarm clock, which was set to go off in twenty minutes. It was February now, seven months since they had all left her alone. Another day that would begin without their smiles. Azusa wanted them all back so badly, just to recreate a normal day with them like it used to be. They were at college now, and mostly split apart. Mio was engaged with a man Azusa hadn't met, Tsumugi had gotten an opportunity to be enrolled in a much better all-girls school, and she hadn't heard anything from Ritsu in months.

Without Ui in the Light Music Club, Jun and her decided that it was best to just let it die instead of finding a legacy to carry it out. Jun had gone back to the Jazz Club, and Azusa decided to remain clubless, playing her guitar alone at home in the time it left for her. She would lay on the floor hours at a time with her Mustang on top of her, listening to Roger Water's sing while she played along with David Gilmour. In her eyes, the two of them were geniuses, and _The Wall _was probably the greatest album ever created. Afternoons would drift by as she laid there in a haze of pot smoke with the sounds of music ringing in her ears. She knew she was fast going down a path of self-destruction and ruining her life, but she found herself just not caring.

"Yui..." She whispered in the cool silence of her room, wishing somehow that saying her name would make her appear. Loneliness overcame her, and she began the day by crying. She would come to school expecting to see Ui there, telling her that Onee-chan would want her to visit after school so they could eat snacks and play their guitars, even if she had been out of school for some time now. That wouldn't happen though, there wouldn't be Ui, and she'd be lucky if someone like Jun spoke two words to her throughout the day; if they had still been in school. She wouldn't stop waiting though, because there wasn't any conclusive evidence that Yui was gone. There was no trace of her, and by all accounts she had just disappeared from the face of the earth, but Azusa would never stop waiting for her to come back.

Nothing had made sense in her apparent passing, which was what lead Azusa to believe Yui was still there, just far away, or even possibly in some other dimension of reality; anything was possible. She remembered how bad it had been when she got there, even if she couldn't remember how she knew where to find Yui then. It had been after school, and Azusa just decided she would take a walk through the woods near where they lived. Yui was home from college that week, for some reason Azusa would never know; she just was. The air that day had been hot and muggy, with bugs and mosquitoes running rampant. Sweat had pooled under her arms, leaving the areas around them on her school uniform noticeably damp. Azusa didn't know if that had been because of the heat, or the anxiety of walking through the woods in a sure direction without knowing why. Sure enough, she had found Yui there. Her skin was cold despite the sweltering heat, cold against Azusa's lips. Even colder wind blew, feeling like ice against her bare legs, blowing her skirt upwards from the angle she was sitting at. After that, she couldn't remember what happened, but Yui was gone, and her blood had left stains on Azusa's uniform. She still kept the uniform tucked away, unwashed, spotted with deep brown stains from Yui's blood just to prove that it had really happened.

That night she had found that Ui had been murdered. Not like a 'hit by a stray car', or 'caught in the crossfire of another murder', or even 'wasn't trying to kill her'. Someone had simply waltzed into their home while Yui was gone and sliced her throat that same day. Slitting her throat hadn't been enough for this psycho though; they had made it a point to stab her upwards of 104 times across her body. Upon hearing that, Azusa had laughed, thinking that it was just a joke. Such a grisly, pointless murder seemed like something out of a fourteen year old boy's attempt at a horror story. But no, someone had really gone and murdered one of her best friends and got away with it. Nobody knew how someone could have made it in and out without a sound, and then stolen away while doubtlessly covered in Ui's blood. Azusa knew Yui had been covered in blood in the woods, but that had to have been her own, and her wounds looked as if they were claw marks, not the slashes of a razor. Azusa had no idea what kind of animal only clawed at its prey. No sign of bite marks were seen…

But today will be the day though, Azusa thought as she cleaned herself up and readied for school. Today would be the day that Yui would reappear in her life, telling her that what she saw in the woods had just been some odd dream or figment of her imagination. People went missing all the time, and Azusa knew this was just one of those cases. She made her breakfast, ate it, said goodbye to her parents, and stepped out the door. There was a wide grin on her face because she _knew _today would be the day. It was almost the same, but the uniform was different. Instead of her old school uniform, she dressed in her work clothes, a janitor's suit for her job there. It was a bit of irony that she ended up being a janitor for her old school instead of moving onto college like everyone else. But she knew she couldn't go off to college after what happened. Her mind just wasn't able to work that hard anymore. Her parents understood, and patiently supported her.

_**Yui**_

She could make out Azusa smiling through the mist and fog around her that was always there. It was hard to understand how the twin-tailed guitarist could be smiling, but it made Yui feel better to see it. So little had happened over the months, and any reaction out of Azusa made her feel better, especially since the kouhai had been so sad most of the time. Yui wished she could make Azusa feel better; make her smile again.

If anything, college had made them closer friends. Mio was so focused on her schoolwork and boyfriend that she was never around, Tsumugi was gone from the picture completely with her transferring of schools, and Ritsu would just disappear for days at a time. At first it had been Ui inviting Azusa over every time Yui was home from college to visit. Being that the older sister didn't have friends beyond her distracted band mates, this ended up being nearly every weekend. While Ui was there, it was mostly Yui and Azusa together, going out places, watching movies, playing videogames, or even just laying around playing their guitars together. Even if all the other girls were distracted with things like boyfriends and schoolwork, Yui was happy being with Azusa. She had become something more like a second sister than a friend; if not more than that. It had been a great month for them.

One night, while Azusa was over, she had gotten a little tipsy. It was Golden Week, and Yui had a bit of sake to drink with Azusa and her sister. She didn't drink often, or hardly ever, but they had gone out for karaoke that night, and a little booze got rid of any singing inhibitors. Azusa had stayed over at their house that night, sleeping on Yui's floor on a mat that was frequently laid out for her. The thrill from the night of singing and laughing while drinking had left Yui's head in a complete daze. She laid on her bed with Gitah on her lap, quietly playing the one piano bit from _Silent Hill 2 _that showed up when the main character met the one girl with the sweater who had parent issues. Yui was far too drunk to remember the specific names, just how to play that piano part on her guitar. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Azusa laying there, looking as adorable as ever. No, she looked _more _adorable than ever, like those cute little kittens that made you just want to squeal because they were _that _god damned cute. Yui silently slipped out of her bed and stood on her knees looking down at sleeping Azusa, wondering just what to do with her. She wanted to just grab her and squeeze her in a tight hug, but she had done that before and had been rewarded with only chaos.

Without thinking, she gently placed a kiss on Azusa's lips, if only to see if she would react. There was no reaction, and the ditzy guitarist still had no idea just what she was trying to do. Once again, she didn't think, but just acted on impulse and curiosity. Azusa was out like a rock, and didn't stir at all from Yui lifting her arm and dropping it back down several times. Yui had more to drink than she realized, and was just now feeling it. If possible, Ui always tried to limit her sister to just one small cup of sake when a situation involving drinking came up. Unless checked, Yui would accept liquor like she accepted tea, seemingly unable to say no to peoples' offers. Now she was paying for it with her head spinning and her stomach churning as she looked at the pajamas Azusa was in. They were the really loose fitting kind that always reminded Yui of the robes and stuff that priests wore at shrines. Azusa had been lying at just the right angle that the sleeve of her pants had ridden up well past her knee, showing off the entire leg. Something about that, combined with the prose look of her sleeping face, made her seem outrageously cute, even beautiful in the dim light of her room.

Quietly, and gently, and with even less thought, Yui moved the rest of the blanket off of Azusa, still unsure of just what she was doing. All she knew was that she wanted to do _something _with Azusa, and that doing nothing would be wasting this moment. Her hands were trembling when she realized she wanted to see more of her black haired friend. See those parts that had been concealed over the length of their friendship. Feel them on her finger tips. She did just that. Azusa was laying on her side, legs bunched up, but Yui still managed to slip her fingers down the front of her pajama pants and under her panties, feeling the warmth of the skin beneath. Her fingers were immediately met with short, coarse hair surrounded by smaller, prickly ones. Yui's entire body was trembling now, and every rational part of her brain was telling her to stop; but this was something she had never done before, never done anything close to this, and wanted to see it through. She moved her three fingers past the little tuft of hair, and felt where the skin parted, and just how warm Azusa was.

Her fingers rubbed slowly against Azusa's sex, suddenly becoming slick with juices and fluids that hadn't been there. Azusa shuttered in her sleep, sharply inhaling, but not waking. Still, Yui had pressed her luck too much already; she retracted her hand and returned to her bed, heart beating like the double bass of the one drum solo part in _Metallica's Fight Fire With Fire_, her throbbing head playing the part of the toms. She was shaking as she tried to figure out just what had prompted her to do that, and why she had gone through with it. Her right hand's three central fingers were now sticky and slick with moisture, accompanied by an odd smell emanating from them. Yui held those fingers to her nose, taking in the strong, bizarre smell before running her tongue down the side of them. She winced from the sharp taste, and felt herself getting hotter between the legs. She knew what to do then.

Those memories danced through her head as she followed behind Azusa, barely able to see more than her silhouette in the endless sea of fog she walked through. She didn't know why that particular memory appeared in her mind when there were so many more chaste ones; happier ones. Putting those thoughts aside, Yui wanted so badly to run up and hold her hand and walk with her to school, but she knew that if she did that she would disappear into the blackness again. The blackness was scary, cold, and time had no meaning there. It would have been surprising to her to know that she had been gone for only seven months, instead of the seven years it felt like.

She wanted so bad to send some kind of message to Azusa and tell her to at least pretend she was still there. The way Yui saw it, if Azusa pretended, she could pretend too and then it would almost be like they were together again. Azu-nyan was always so lonely, and Yui wanted so badly to go to her to bring her love and happiness, like it was before. She had no idea why things were this way, or if she was alive or dead, just that she existed perpetually in a world of darkness, fog, and cold.

Consequences be damned! She sprinted at Azusa, desperate to give her some sign that she was still there, just to give her a glimmer of hope.

"_Azu-nyan!_"

Her fingers grazed the back of Azusa's shirt before the wind turned against her in a torrent of pressure. She screamed and cried, frantically clawing at the air as some unknown force pulled her backwards. Any warmth that had been in the air instantly disappeared, and all light faded away into utter blackness. Yui cried as she felt herself falling into an abyss of loneliness, a prisoner of some sick twist of fate.

_**Azusa**_

The twin-tailed guitarist shuddered as she felt an unnaturally chilly air wash over her. She stopped in her tracks as she could have sworn she heard the wind whisper her old nickname, "_Azu-nyan..._"

"Yui-senpai?" She spoke aloud in the stillness of the street she was walking on. The chilled wind passed, leaving her in eerie silence. Nothing moved now, and the muffled sound of distance cicadas seemed all too loud. Azusa looked around. All the houses around her felt devoid of any life even if they were all well kept and maintained. To her, she felt like the last person on the planet; like everyone else had just disappeared. In a sense she was right, because Yui-senpai was the only person to her, and she had simply vanished; replaced with a few dead leaves in Azusa's arms. Her eyes focused on the mountains that seemed to be in every direction, thinking about how the only thing higher than they were the clouds. If Yui and Ui were truly in the heavens among those clouds, like so many of the others believed them to be, she would not have hesitated to climb the tallest of those mountains that threatened to cross that divine border. Anything for one more moment together with both of them.

Starting her work day was as painful as ever. It felt like disgusting irony how thatwas the _only_ place she could find a job. Every day for three years she had gone there and spent those days with the greatest friends she would ever have. She loved every one of them, and now they had either forgotten about her, died, or simply vanished. Every day now she was forced to walk those halls in solitude, the memories and ghosts of the past dancing around her in sick mockery. Today was one of the days where she felt like just lying down and crying. Everything that brought her happiness had been torn away, leaving her hollow and alone; a shell of what she had been. It didn't help that her janitorial duties were simply humiliating. That day, a freshman had found it in their liking to smear menstrual blood all over a bathroom stall for her to clean up.

She ended her day feeling even more miserable then when she started, still wondering: _Why did this have to happen to me? Why were my two best friends taken from me? What did I do to deserve this?_

Life couldn't go on like this. Going through each day wishing she was dead while paying just enough money for groceries and utilities that her parents didn't kick her out of the house. Azusa knew it was pathetic, that _she _was pathetic. She had been walking home for twenty minutes now, the only thoughts on her mind were of how sorry she felt for herself. Part of her wished her parents would crack down and discipline her so she would make something of her tattered life. But her parents hadn't known what to do or say when they learned that their daughter's two best friends had died. They figured that was the reason she had fallen so deeply into depression, and they didn't seem to care that she smoked pot or popped pills almost on a daily basis. Azusa wished they did though, just so she knew that someone cared enough about her to step in and make her stop.

She looked up from her feet and noticed she had wandered near the woods without even realizing. If the mood struck her, the only thing keeping her from the haunted and forlorn woods was a meter high incline of concrete. All she had to do was climb. But Azusa didn't want to go into those woods, the ones that worked as a shortcut to Yui's neighborhood if the right path was taken, but went on for miles if you strayed in the wrong direction. She remembered something about a few kids getting lost in there over the years but never thought about it. Then again, _Yui _had disappeared there too, and it made her wonder if there was some relation. Her mind quickly rectified that though, because she knew that very real threats existed deep within the trees that would harm small children. Wild dogs, bush pigs, probably a child kidnapper or two, and the latter appeared all over the new almost weekly.

Azusa climbed up the little concrete wall and towards the edge of the forest, glad nobody was around to see her. She stood up and looked ahead, taking in the small bushes and tall trees that extended until ending at another street. The sun was setting, and the orange-red light was peering through the treetops, casting long dark shadows, and twinkling off the occasional piece of garbage that littered the dirt. She remembered when they thought Yui had gotten lost there, back during the school marathon. It had been funny afterwards, but now she found no humor in it, because it had come true. Azusa followed one of the little trails through the bushes; the one that led to the more 'wild' parts of the woods, beyond all the development and housing. It was quiet there, and even the non-stop droning of cars seemed muffled by the tranquility of birds chirping and bugs buzzing.

But Azusa was scared, utterly terrified of being alone there. All of a sudden she regretted coming there and wondered why she had done that in the first place. Whatever had swallowed up Yui was sure to get her next, and even the wind seemed to be laughing at her through the trees. No big deal, she would just turn around and-

The trail behind her was gone. That meter wide path she had followed was no longer there, just underbrush surrounding her. She was standing in the middle of the wild growth, but hadn't remembered ever leaving the trail. In fact, she was sure it had just been basic dirt under her feet, not all these bushes, vines, and tall grass. It would have taken some sort of effort to walk to where she was now considering how heavy the plant growth was there. Her heart was pounding rapidly, ringing in her ears like a .30 caliber machine gun; her breath quickened, and her body broke out in sweat. There was no reason for her to be terrified, or even the least bit scared. She was an adult and had merely strayed off the path while taking a hike after work. In fact, she remembered one of her coworkers talking about doing the exact same thing.

_Then why am I so damn scared! _Her mind screamed as she spun around in place, trying to find the trail she had walked to get there. She took a deep breath and tried to be practical about the situation. After a few seconds of silence, she pin pointed the direction of the sound of cars of the freeway driving in the distance. Calmly she walked towards that direction, feeling a rather cold wind against her back. The plant growth became thicker, dryer, and with less leaves in general. She had to raise her legs higher with each step to trample through the skinny vines that were now starting to grow above knee lengths. Thorns from some plant she missed tore at her pant legs, tearing the fabric and drawing blood.

_How! _Azusa's mind screamed again. If she had just brushed up against them, they would have just snagged. Her pants were torn up though, a good 4 inch cut, and she could see the blood flowing now. Heart racing even faster now, Azusa tried moving faster towards the sound of cars. The growth instantly became thicker, and thorns tore away at the long sleeves of her shirt, drawing more blood with deeper cuts. Azusa stopped in her tracks. There weren't _any _thorns above knee level, besides the few that were able to just reach her thigh. She raised her trembling arm and looked at the cut just above the elbow...

It looked just like the one she had received the time she accidentally cut herself with a razor blade when she had been much younger. Exactly the same, right down to where it was. She had been about six at the time, and found her dad's shaving razor sitting in a cup next to the restroom sink. Being six years old, all she knew was it was the thing that Papa put up against his face. Clumsily she had tried to reenact the same thing on her arm, but had managed in cutting herself quite badly. She had cried, sobbing wildly while her mother tried to calm her down, all while scolding her father for leaving his razor where her baby could get to it. That had lead to just about all sharp things being hidden, along with the rat poison. Later in life, Azusa had begun to believe her parents didn't think her all too bright sometimes.

Those memories had momentarily subdued the fear she was feeling from being sliced like that from what appeared to be nothing. Nothing in that forest should have been able to do that, yet she could feel the blood running down her arm and the cut stinging madly. Her legs were shaking with fright as well, and she felt like a dam inside her had broken; literally. Hot urine poured from between her legs as she was unable to contain herself. She hadn't used the toilet before leaving work, and had drunk tea with lunch; now it was repaying her most unkindly. Azusa stumbled through the thorny vines to a tree and leaned against it, still going in her pants as she went. She began to openly cry now as she pressed herself against the bark, too afraid to move anymore. The right leg of her pants was now completely soaked, warm and sticky, and the sound of her pee dripping onto the dirt beneath her was all too loud in the silence. She couldn't even hear the cars now.

"_Yui-senpai._" Azusa choked in the silence of the fast darkening woods, hoping that invoking the name of her friend would somehow save her. The wind was picking up now, and the sun was falling behind the horizon, making it hard to see beyond a couple dozen meters due to the thick shadows. The wind was increasing in speed, growing colder with each gust. She lost the strength in her legs and slid down to the ground, her body scraping up painfully against the bark as she did so. There she was, sitting in dirt dampened by her own urine, crying as she held her legs close to her body, feeling even more pathetic as she smelled the liquid she soiled herself with.

_"Run."_

A voice rang out in the deep recesses of her mind, almost too faded to even be noticed. It had been quiet, and feminine, too vague for Azusa to figure out who's voice she thought it in if not her own. But it hadn't been her voice, and it had been startlingly sudden. Unable to think of anything else to do that was any safer or more productive, Azusa climbed to her feet and sprinted through the brush in the direction she had been heading in. The dried plants felt even harder to pass through now, with the branches of the small bushes no longer breaking underfoot like they had, and the thorns becoming sharper and more frequent. Tiny razor-like cuts appeared all along her legs and even up past her waist as she ran as fast as she could.

Her foot collided with something hard and small jutting out the ground. She felt a few of her toenails crack as she tripped over it, flying forwards into a patch of bushes that were high enough to be considered hedges by some people. The leafy wall was a stark contrast to the sea of nearly dead bushes and vines she had trampled through to get there. It was funny the things her mind realized when she was falling forward.

She hadn't been able to see it in the dark, but the bushes actually marked the top of a hillside. Azusa fell through the thick bushes and tumbled down hill, unable to stop or control her descent in any way. Small plants, fallen trees, sharp twigs, broken branches and rocks all met her as she rolled down some thirty meters before blasting through another set of bushes into much softer grass.

Azusa's small body was completely tattered after the fall down the hill. Her pants and shirt were completely frayed now, with dozens of cuts, scrapes, and bruises openly showing in the light of the setting sun. She had been sure that it was night when she was back in the woods, but out there in the open, the sun was only about halfway through setting. The house she was behind signified that she was in someone's backyard. Judging by how bland the décor was, or lack thereof, Azusa could tell this house was vacant...yet it was strangely familiar, like one of those places you visit once and would only recognize if you returned.

Then it hit her; this was where the kind old lady who took care of Yui and Ui had lived before passing away several months beforehand. Azusa could not, for the life of her, remember what that woman's name had been. Only that Yui called her _'Ma_ and that she had been extremely caring towards the two girls. This also meant that Azusa was in Yui's old neighborhood.

Step by step, she limped around the side of the house. Walking was horribly difficult for her in her current state. At least one rib was broken, bones were bruised, every part of her felt like it had been dipped in acid, and her soaked panties were riding up inside her in just about the most uncomfortable manner possible. Fighting past all of that, she made it to the twilight-lit side walk in the quiet, apparently empty suburbs of her silent little Japanese town. Nobody was outside. She couldn't even see the cars she heard in the distance now, or hear anything beyond the wind close by. Although it was probably her imagination, Azusa could have sworn the wind sounded...disappointed.

The silence of the street was stirring up emotions of fright that were fighting to subdue the relief she felt for getting out of the dry woods. Feeling wary, paranoid, and like the last person on earth, Azusa limped down the sidewalk towards her home across town; easily a forty minute walk. The neighborhood was a chilling reminder of the times she spent with Yui and her sister there. In the summer they would walk barefoot with ice cream cones down the street, smiling and talking to all the people they met along the way. Back then, everything there seemed so friendly. Now it was like a necropolis in every sense of the word...

...and then Azusa stood before the mausoleum she had hoped to avoid while walking through the empty neighborhood; the old Hirasawa residence, which apparently had gone under new ownership within those seven months. She could understand that. Their parents would want a place that wasn't covered in reminders of their two lost daughters.

Surprisingly, there were two little children playing in the front yard. They couldn't have been older than four or five, both girls with brown hair that went down to about their necks. As far as Azusa could tell, they hadn't even noticed her standing at the sidewalk, looking like she had fallen into a wood chipper, watching them.

"Onee-chan, give him back!" The smaller one cried, chasing after her big sister who had so cleverly pilfered a stuffed rabbit from her, and was now trying to escape with it.

"No, it's mine!" The older sister held it away from her, using her free hand to push the little sister away.

Azusa smiled at their little sibling rivalry, and was glad that home found new residents that were more or less like the old ones. _Come to think of it, those two little girls looked at lot like Ui and Yui from those old photo-albums they showed me. The younger sister even had cute little overalls like Ui did_, Azusa realized as she crossed another street towards her house.

_**Nightfall**_

Telling her parents that she had been hit by a car had worked perfectly, and even scored her a day off of work. It had taken an hour to walk home, with no one stopping to offer a ride to the hospital or the like, or even asking if she was okay. She may as well have been invisible.

Now she was laying naked on her bed, covered in bandages that she had administered herself after declining her mother's offer to aid her in that endeavor. The black light of her room bathed it in a comfortable purple glow, and she had lit some incense to help clear her foggy, fear filled mind. She didn't know why she went into those woods, and how she ended up in Yui's neighborhood when she was going the complete opposite direction. For that matter, she didn't know how she got so lost either, or how she got so cut up. It had been like the woods themselves were acting against her.

After an hour of thinking, with on and off attempts at masturbation to try and relieve some stress, she came up with a conclusion as to why she went in there. She had been trying to find that little clearing where Yui had disappeared. It would have been easy to find if she knew where to look again. The land marks were simple: it was by a small, rushing river, had a circle of stone effigies carved like wolves around it, and was covered in about six inches of leaves, even in May. The place had a strange sort of power, and Azusa knew that some kind of spirit, or even demon, resided there. Whether or not it was malevolent was a mystery to her, but she was closer to believing it was after considering all that had happened.

She decided that tomorrow she would try to call Mio or Tsumugi; she didn't have Ritsu's number, or even knew how to get a hold of her. Somehow she knew that talking to them would make her feel better, and she would try to arrange a meeting so they could get together and jam someday. That was what she needed; to play with friends again, since the only musician she knew was Jun, and Jun was not a bassist she could play guitar with. The girl knew some tricks, but couldn't understand the concept of the instrument being primarily a rhythm piece. Every time they played, it was the same thing. Azusa would do some generic power chord riffing, only to be overpowered by the sound of 32nd note alternate picked bass slides on the two high strings. She would tell Jun to stop doing that because it sounded wrong without a drummer matching it, but the girl would get defensive and claim that since Justin Chancellor did it, then she could too.

Azusa wanted to play with a band, not another person who tried to steal the spotlight with a rhythm instrument who literally replied with, "_Anata ga okotte iru?_" while smiling. Not understanding why Jun thought saying that was funny, Azusa had gone online and learned she was trying to copy the English saying, "_You mad?_" Apparently in western culture that saying was used to absolve the speaker of guilt when they committed an outwardly rude act towards another. Azusa didn't understand it at all.

In her purple lit room, she managed to smile despite her aching body. If she couldn't get Mio, and just Tsumugi was available, she would definitely invite Jun. Despite the girl's shortcomings, Azusa admitted she loved being around her and her fat doughnut eating butt.

She drifted off to sleep after hours of restlessly laying on her bed. Her story about being hit by a car worked so well because that's what she felt like. That tumble down the hill had been brutal, and she was considering making an appointment with a doctor to make sure nothing was broken.

It was a mixed blessing that she was gifted with dreams that night. Her dreams after the incident had been either absurdly strange nightmarish forays into a dark foggy world, or just reenactments of days with her friends. Azusa's favorite dreams were the ones where they were playing the school festival show, and she had all her current guitar knowledge. The nightmares that occurred in her sleep were hardly considered nightmares to her, but were called that since the antonym of a happy dream was a nightmare; and these weren't happy dreams. Often times they involved her walking alone, usually naked, down cold industrial hallways choked with mist and fog. Sometimes she would hear voices of people she knew telling her to find them in the endless maze of concrete and metal passages. The scenery was always rusty and brown, reminding her of that one video game that Jun like, one that she couldn't ever remember the title of. The outcome was always the same, her waking up feeling confused.

Tonight was different. She was in a new piece of scenery, and it was a lucid dream by all means. Azusa instantly recognized she was dreaming, and slowly looked down to examine her body. She was wearing her old school uniform and was free of the days previous forest related injuries. Movement was sluggish here, and just looking down had been difficult. This was probably the most frustrating thing any dream could produce to her, and she was already getting angry at it as she tried to walk forward to...wherever this was. At first she couldn't tell, the scenery had been backdrop that she paid no attention to as she examined herself. Now it was fully visible around her.

A forest of sorts, much like the one she had been in today, and where she lost Yui. Although the two were the same, they felt different. One part was mystical, one part was terrifying. She was in a wide clearing, with a rushing stream in front of her about ten meters away. The trees around her were impossibly tall, and all dead. All the plant life was dead, and the blue sky above seemed wrong, like it should have been gray or black to match the mood. It had the qualities of a lonely winter's day, and Azusa wished she would just wake up, or that her dream would change into something else. But no matter how hard she tried to change it, it was stuck like this.

She walked across the fallen dead leaves in a foggy haze. She wasn't wearing shoes, but had her black tights on, which she remembered wearing a whole three times. The black fabric beneath her feet quickly tore and gave away at the ground beneath her, letting the bare skin of her tiny feet make contact with the dried, decaying plant matter. It was strangely unsettling, like she wasn't supposed to feel the leaves beneath her. Dreams like these made her give merit to those theories people had about them being sojourns to another existence; because sometimes they were too real. The flowing stream she had found Yui next to seven months ago was before her now. Except now it was a deep red and completely frozen. Everything around her was now drained of color, and left in gray scale (or had it been the whole time? She couldn't remember), while the river was that same shade of dark scarlet. Behind her, she heard footsteps crunch leaves, prompting her to turn around.

Just like she had expected, there was Hirasawa Yui, alone. No Hirasawa Ui though. Ui was never in her dreams, or hardly in her thoughts at all. Thinking about Ui made Azusa come to the realization that she didn't think about Ui enough, which lead to guilt, which lead to her thinking about her less. It was a difficult thing to think about, let alone accept as reality. This bright, innocent young girl had been murdered with extreme malice. The entire case was strange, and the lack of any sexual acts performed by the killer before her death seemed even stranger. Azusa wasn't the only one who almost wished she _had _been raped or molested before being stabbed, because then it would have made just a little bit of sense. Sexual impulse was a driving force, and it would have given some kind of reason to the heinous crime. _Well, the killer had his way with her, and decided to kill her to prevent her from describing him to the police. Perhaps he had a very distinguishing feature that would have allowed us to find him easily? Why did he mutilate the body so much? Well anyone who rapes a little girl like that already has issues to begin with and... _But there was no rape, just senseless death.

"Y-Yui-senpai." Azusa greeted her, stuttering, and shaking very badly. The dream apparition felt terribly out of place, and Yui looked like she had aged seven months. Her hair was just a little longer, her body just a little bit more adult shaped. Azusa had been friends with her for awhile, and spent so much time with her that she was able to pick up on these things easily. Normally in her dreams, Yui was just a reflection of her memories, but this Yui was different.

"Azusa." She nodded in her direction, the chirpy quality of her voice completely gone. That downright scared Azusa. Yui _always _talked in a chirpy, high strung voice. This was flat, like Nodoka's voice almost, while still sounding like Yui. It was unnerving.

The twin-tailed dreamer didn't know what to say. She knew she was dreaming, but was stuck in this scene and she didn't know how to talk to someone she knew was- Wait, she _didn't _know that Yui was dead, and mentally kicked herself for not remembering that. Azusa took a slow, deep breath, and spoke, "Are...you..._you_?"

"Am I me?" Yui took a step forward with a casual look on her face like this was just them talking in class. She was wearing the same outfit as Azusa, with the same lack of shoes. _That's because our shoes are at the shoe locker at school, and we forgot to change them_, she reasoned in the dream, crafting a story to fit. That was something she often did in dreams; created reason for things to fill the gaps.

"Yes, are you _you_?" Azusa repeated.

Yui stopped about three meters away, giving a nervous smile that seemed to fit both her and the situation. This made Azusa feel a little better as she replied, "I...think I'm me...uhhh, ask me a question only I know the answer to."

Azusa was at a loss of words, and couldn't even figure out what her own emotions and feelings towards that request were. This looked, sounded, and felt like Yui, but she seemed unsure of herself, which was odd for her senpai. She thought for a moment, then answered, "What's my nick-name?"

"Azu-nyan!" Yui confidently replied, before a strange look washed over her face. It stayed there, like she was trying to remember something, but was replaced with a smile and her old chirpy voice, "Azu-nyan, what are you doing here!"

"Dreaming." Azusa quietly answered with what she thought was the most acceptable response. The dream Yui was making her worried because it was becoming less and less than a memory being replayed, and more and more of her mind tormenting her with images of her lost friend like this. Her best option was to not get involved with this dream sprite.

"Does...that mean I am too?" Yui asked in a quiet voice. There was a hint of emotion that Azusa detected in it, that emotion was hope.

"I don't understand."

"I don't either, but you're here and I get to talk to you!" Yui was smiling now, "I never get to talk to you anymore!"

"I..." Azusa had no idea how to respond to that, then thought of something, "Wait, are you dead!"  
The smile faded from Yui's face, "You...you think I'm dead?"

"I don't know, that's why I'm asking." The twin-tailed dreamer replied to the hazy Yui in front of her. She knew it was wrong to interact with figures in her dreams, and understood how this would affect her when awoke, but continued nonetheless.

"I can't be dead, I'm right here, aren't I?" Dream-Yui gave a shaky laugh, and stepped towards Azusa, who took a step back from her, "And you can hear me, and you're not dead either, right?"

"R-Right..." She stepped back again.

"T-That means we can be together again, somehow!" It sounded like this Dream-Yui was trying to reason with herself or something. She was smiling madly, trying to stifle laughter, "Azu-nyan, can I try and hug you?"

_No! _Azusa's mind instantly shouted, but her lips said otherwise, "Yes."

Before she could even blink, Yui's arms were around her, and they were embracing each other. After being hugged nearly daily for two years by her, Azusa was hit with a tidal wave of nostalgia. It was a dream. Yui was part of this dream, and she knew it wasn't anything more than that; but it all felt painfully real. Her head was right below Yui's chin, as was normal in their hugging form, and from there, everything felt like it should have in real life. The school uniform Yui was wearing smelled the same, like her along with the subtle smell of floral laundry detergent. The only thing awry about this situation was how incomplete Yui felt against her. She was all there, but in a strange way, part of her felt missing.

Now Azusa was crying, clutching the fabric of Yui's clothes, "You're supposed to be dead! That's what everyone says!"

"Don't cry Azu-nyan." Her potentially deceased senpai whispered, stroking her hair, "I'm not dead. I'm really not."

"Then where are you!" She screamed, tiny fists slamming into Yui's chest, "You just disappeared and left me alone! It's selfish!"

"I didn't mean to leave you alone." Yui was beginning to weep too, but was trying hard to look like she wasn't.

"_Then come back!_" Azusa screamed with all the force her sobbing voice could muster. It came out as a choking squeak.

Yui held her tighter, failing to keep her composure. Big watery tears slid down her cheeks, with mucus trailing down her nose. Some women looked cute when they cried, Yui happened to be one of them, "I can't, Azu-nyan. Every time I try..." She sniffled, her voice falling apart, "Everything goes black."

"Then let me come to you!" The younger guitarist whimpered, "Tell me where you are and I'll find you."

"I'm here, Azu-nyan, always nearby."

_**Awake**_

Noise exploded near Azusa's ear as her cellphone loudly played _Can't Buy Me Love _by _The Beatles_, making her instantly regret making that play every time she got a call. She sat upwards, shoving the blanket away from her, nearly screaming in anger. Her alarm clock said it was six in the morning. Someone was calling her at six in the morning. In her flurry of anger, kicking bedding away, and pulling at her hair, the phone went to voice mail.

"Hey, Azusa-chan!" It was Jun, "Uh, I heard you got in an accident and wondered if you wanted to spend today at my house playing video games or something. Sorry if this woke you up!"

That was right, Jun was unemployed. Azusa grabbed the phone and threw it across the room into the wall, "_Who the hell calls people at six AM on a Thursday_!"

There was a crack as the device hit the wall, and her touch screen phone was more than likely shattered now. Azusa didn't care though. She was hardly able to control her anger at being awakened from that dream. The first sign of Yui in seven months was ruined because Jun liked to stay up all night and call people.

She flopped back down, burying her face in her pillow, still crying from her dream. That was it. Yui was still waiting for Azusa just as Azusa was waiting for her. From what the distraught little girl could tell, they were separated somehow; like they were in two different planes of reality. She perfectly understood how silly that was to think, but it wasn't anymore silly in her opinion than someone getting away with butchering a high school girl, and then her sister flat out disappearing from existence without a trace. Hell, chances were that unicorns or dragons were somehow involved in all of this.

_Always nearby_, well Azusa certainly didn't ever see her nearby. Then again, nearby was incredibly subjective in this case. For all Azusa knew, Dream Yui could have been telling her to commit suicide. The only thing she was sure of was how that _had _been Yui, the _real _Yui.

The only place Azusa could think that she would be was that special spot on the woods; the place where she vanished. It was up to her to find it and somehow follow Yui to where she had gone. Then they could be together. She was prepared to give up what little of a life she had for that. If her friends had stuck around a bit more and helped her past the grief, things would have been different. Instead, all they gave were a few words of stunned sympathy to the grieving parents of Ui and Yui, simply too shocked to react to losing one of their friends. Nobody had been there for Azusa.

She had skipped the funeral, sitting at home in her room. Her father was a police officer and owned a Glock 17. She had held the cold metal pistol in her hands and had considered taking her own life then and there. After thirty minutes of pressing the cold barrel to the roof of her mouth and waiting for her fingers to finally muster the courage to pull the trigger, she came to the conclusion that Yui wasn't dead. Seven months later, that decision finally paid off. In a way it felt wonderful, since she had spent much of that time regretting not just splattering her brains all over the wall of her room and leaving a note simply saying, "Sorry about the mess."

There was a secret in those woods, something beyond the eyes of normal people.

And Azusa would find it.

Azusa would find Yui.

**TO BE CONTINUED**

(Thank you to Mister Yada for your excellent job beta-reading)**  
**


	2. The Nightmare

**FEEDING A DREAM**

**PART 2**

**THE NIGHTMARE**

_The events of this chapter are intentionally bizarre, surreal, hard to follow, and confusing. There is no explanation for what happens, and the reader is supposed to be as lost and confused as Azusa.  
_

"We should have just stayed home and played video games." Jun pouted as her and Azusa walked side by side in the nice little park that bordered the edge of the woods Azusa was so interested in. Azusa often forgot how many ways you could get into the forest around town, and just how immersive it was. She had wanted to go alone, but her parents insisted she went out around town with a friend. Jun was her only option. Her plan was to set up a little picnic on a park bench, excuse herself to the little restroom station there, and sneak away unnoticed. Something would guide her to Yui; she was sure of that.

From where she was standing, those woods looked sinister. It was February, and the lack of leaves left the forest looking like an endless sea of brown, gnarled skeletons that stretched forever over a carpet of dead foliage. The way to Yui was somewhere in there, and her heartbeat quickened just thinking about that.

"Well, I guess a picnic could be fun." Jun smiled, and placed their cooler on top of the only empty picnic table in the park. Some kid was having a birthday party, and the place was overrun with toddlers running about screaming, laughing, playing with each other. It was a perfect chance for Azusa to slip away and do what she had to do. She felt like eating something would be a good idea, but found she had no appetite. Jun, on the other hand, was already slicing into the big deli subway sandwich they bought, while attempting to drink a beer at the same time.

"Not around kids, Jun..." Azusa grimaced at her doing that. She felt like she should have scolded her more for doing that, but realized her habits weren't any better. Girls their age drinking was almost expected, but smoking pot wasn't exactly the same.

"Oh. Sorry." She shrugged, not really changing anything.

Azusa decided there was no sense in waiting to leave, "I'm going to the restroom to touch up a bit."

"'Kay, I'll just be here eating this sandwich." Jun wasn't really paying attention to Azusa, and was focused on her meal. She didn't notice Azusa just walk past the small little single restrooms, going off on her own somewhere. Jun _had_ noticed that their friendship really fell apart after Ui 'passed away'. Something about only being two of them just wasn't the same, and Azusa was terribly reclusive. Jun had tried talking to her about it, but Azusa didn't have anything to say regarding Yui or Ui. The most the girl could do for her was at least tell her she was there for her when Azusa needed her; which she strove to make clear. Still, Azusa kept her feelings to herself, only wanting attention and sympathy from her friends in the Old Light Music Club.

Meanwhile, Azusa was just out of sight beyond where the trees began to huddle together to form the woods. As she stood at the tree line, she felt a cold, sinister wind blow against her. It felt almost..._evil, _for lack of a better term. But here she was, about to enter a whole different world it felt like; a world of tales and different moods.

When her foot stepped onto the first dry, dead leaf that had fallen months ago, she knew there was no turning back. Forward was the only way to go, for better or worse. The restricting thorns were far away, out of sight and out of mind to Azusa this time. It was a straight walk through the silent woods, with the sounds of the playing children and distant cars all completely muted. A mist was forming in the distance in all directions, like it did in her dreams. This was good. Her dreams were becoming the reality she wanted them too. Part of her regretted not saying one last goodbye to anyone before coming here, but she felt like there was nothing left to say.

Before her was a trail where the leaves had been pushed aside or stomped down, probably some path for joggers. It was as good of a place as any to start her journey, so she followed its length. Normally brisk walks through the woods entertained her with the scenery, but nothing here was pleasant to look at. The trees didn't just look like normal bare winter trees. They all seemed dead; slumped mournfully, awaiting their turn to rot away into nothingness. The mist stayed away, blurring the way behind her. Azusa made it a point to keep focused on the trail. She didn't want to get lost again. Something told her the woods wouldn't be as forgiving a second time if she ended up lost a second time. The aching pains across her body were a firm reminder of why she had to stay on the path.

"Excuse me miss." A small child spoke, shattering the silence. Azusa almost screamed from surprise. Standing in front of her was a little girl, one that was around the same age as the kids at the birthday party. Except she recognized this one, it was the younger sister from the two she saw the night before who lived where Yui and Ui had. The little girl had part of her hair tied up in a little tail sticking up straight from the top of her head. Something about that was familiar.

"Y-You shouldn't be out here alone." Azusa stuttered in surprise.

"Neither should you." The child smiled innocently, and skipped past her back down the path.

_I-It's alright, she'll be fine if she just walks down that way back to the park. It's a straight line_, Azusa justified to keep moving forward as opposed to seeing the little girl safely back. She walked on, wondering just what that kid had meant with 'neither should you'. That was a flat out bizarre thing for a little kid to say when approached by an adult. But Azusa realized that even if she was almost 20 years old, she barely looked 15.

After another twenty minutes of walking forward, Azusa had begun to get a little tired and bored. The trail had thinned a bit, and made so many subtle turns that she couldn't tell which direction she was heading. She decided to take a quick break by sitting on a stump next to a little stream going over a bed of rocks. The stream was narrow enough to simply step over, far too small to be the one from her dream she was searching for. The fog had crept up on her, and was now much thicker. A feeling of loneliness swept over her as she sat in solid silence, unable to see more than ten meters in any direction because of the white mist. When she heard footsteps coming up the way she had, she wasn't sure whether to be grateful or frightened.

It was that little girl again. Beneath one of her arms was a brown paper package tied with thin green ribbon. That prompted Azusa to feel frightened, but didn't stop her from showing some responsibility, "Excuse me, are you lost? I can show you the way back to the park. I'm sure everyone's looking for you."

She felt silly for feeling frightened, the little girl no doubt giving a present to whoever was having the birthday, and had wandered off and became lost. However, the child didn't say anything. She just smiled, walked up to Azusa and placed the box in front of her before turning around and skipping away, back into the fog. Azusa sat up and called after her, "Wait, don't go off alone!"

By the time she was to her feet, the girl had broken off into a full sprint into the mist, disappearing quickly. Azusa chased after her just a little, but gave up when she couldn't hear the footfalls against the painful silence anymore. Feeling a bit paranoid and worried now, she turned around to continue forward again. She began to wonder how much of this was real, and how much of this was fabricated from...whatever was making these scary things happen. After considering the sea of thorns from yesterday, her startlingly real dream, and now this; Azusa was sure some sort of spirit was residing in these woods and causing this. It could have been that the spirit took Yui to its own world. Azusa had heard storied like that when she had been in primary school, and they had left her with nightmares back then.

Before long, she got back to where she had been resting, and the brown paper package was still there on the ground. Curious, she picked it up and examined the tag on it.

_To Azusa-chan_

She dropped it back on the ground and jumped back in surprise. Her heart was beating like heavy rain falling, and she felt her bladder become weaker. Not wanting to cause another accident like the day before (that had been humiliating beyond words for her), she managed to hold it in and take deep breaths to calm herself. She realized she was getting too worked up. This could have easily been something like Jun playing a prank on her.

Tied up with the thin green ribbon was a note just next to the tag. Azusa was surprised she hadn't noticed that before. With shaky hands, she unfolded the note and read it to herself.

"_Love her forever_"

That was more strange than unsettling. Perhaps it was a sign from the aforementioned spirit that maybe they would be together once more, and inside would be some clue as to where she was supposed to go. She smiled as she carefully tore the package open to see what was inside. That smile faded as soon as she opened the box.

A bread carving knife.

With dried blood on it.

In an instant, Azusa was sprinting away down the muddy trail. It hadn't been muddy up to that point, but it was now. She wanted to scream from what she saw. Scream and run the other direction. Instead she pushed forward, with no idea as to where she was going. Mud splashed from beneath her and stuck to her bare legs in little brown splatters; it wasn't enough to make her regret wearing shorts though. Eventually she calmed down and stopped running. Panting, she took a rest, grasping her knees and looking around.

No trail anymore.

"_How!_" She screamed in denial at being lost again. The path behind her was gone, but this time she wasn't caught in a sea of underbrush again. The woods were much more open here, and she could go any was just as easily. The problem was she didn't know which way she came anymore. Really not knowing what to do, she picked a random direction by spinning around in circles with her eyes closed. The way she ended up facing was impossible to distinguish from any of the direction, and if anything her surroundings seemed even more unfamiliar now. She had barely begun walking when she heard,

"Azusa-chan!" It was Jun calling her name from somewhere.

No longer wishing to be here in the slightest, she eagerly called back, "Jun-chan, over here!"

There was no answer, but Azusa had heard the direction her voice had come from. She had no idea what compass direction that was, but that didn't stop her from running towards where she heard her name being called, "Jun-chan, where are you!"

No answer again, and Azusa quickly ran to where Jun's voice should have been coming from. All she could see were barren skeletons of trees all around her above the blanket of leaf corpses. She called out Jun's name for several more minutes as she trudged on in that direction before finally giving up. About an hour had passed since she had left the park, but to her it felt like it had been most of the day. When she had been little, her mother and father instructed her on what to do if she ever became lost in a place like this. That bit of information had been sitting unattended in the back of her mind for at least a decade, but now it was finally being used. Her parents told her that screaming at the top of her lungs would definitely alert someone's attention. While that was meant to be used as soon as she was away from people, not after an hour of hiking, Azusa decided it was worth a shot.

So she opened her mouth and destroyed the silence with an ear splitting scream. Her ears rang, her throat clenched, but she gave it her all. One mega scream that could have probably been heard for miles.

Yet nothing reacted. No birds took off in surprise, no one shouting back from the distance. Not even an echo. Utterly crushed by defeat, Azusa couldn't even take solace in how she had managed to stumble onto the path again, or _a _path at least. Because of the clouds in the sky, she couldn't see the sun and use it to tell which direction she was facing. All she knew was this little dirt trail split in two directions, and going right would probably be the correct direction.

As she walked back, she kept listening for any sounds, and had to snap her fingers a few times to make sure she hadn't been going deaf. She was half under the impression that she had fallen asleep back at that stump and that this was all a dream. Maybe taking Jun along would have been a good idea, if only because the silence was making her feel like the only person on the planet.

"Are you still looking for Yui-chan?" Tsumugi asked, walking alongside her. Azusa was surprised that she wasn't more surprised by this. As far as she knew, Mugi hadn't been here with her. Yet there she was, walking alongside her in their old school uniform.

"Yes, I have to." She firmly answered.

"But what if it gets dangerous?" The out of place blonde keyboardist asked her, sounding quite concerned.

"I guess I'll have to risk it." Azusa muttered, really not wanting to even think about that. Up ahead on the path, she could hear two people talking, both women, but was unable to understand what they were saying. Tsumugi was gone now, and it sounded like an argument was taking place in the distance. She hoped this was the way back to the park, and that these were just two parents arguing about something silly. Once she got back to the park, she would find Jun, apologize, attempt to explain everything in a way that made her sound at least sort of sane, and then enlist her help.

The trees here were much thicker and closer together, with the trail winding narrowly between them. It was impossible to see ahead because of this, and the sharp changes in elevation or solid fog didn't help much either. There was no way this could have lead to the park again, but another part of town was certainly possible. Azusa was now close enough to hear what these people were talking about, and it really didn't help her spirits about any of this.

"...Showing you just how bad a girl you were by causing an accident like that. But instead of punishing you, I'm punishing someone else." It sounded to Azusa like some mother scolding an unruly child, except the woman's tone was one of pure malice. She couldn't think of anything a child could do to warrant such a hostile reaction. The strangest thing about that voice was how it echoed from all around her, dancing between the trees to get to her.

"Stop it! You're going to kill her!" Another, much younger sounding woman shouted back. Azusa could hear it all around her, and it was a voice filled with utter terror. That voice had also sounded familiar somehow... but Azusa didn't think on that too much. It sounded like a woman was abusing her children or something along those lines, and this prompted her to start rushing down the path, forced to listen to the exchange from all directions around her.

"Kill her? Well, if you insist?" The tormentor said in a terrifyingly calm and normal voice.

From all around her, she heard the sickening sound of flesh tearing, followed by a choking gargle and someone sobbing uncontrollably. That horrible retching, choking noise was too much for Azusa, and she had to stop running to dry heave a few times.

"If your sister wakes up, she dies."

_What am I listening to? Is this even real?_ Azusa thought as she mindlessly stumbled forward, finding it difficult to walk. Her eyes were blurred from tears caused by her dry heaving, and it made it difficult to make out her surroundings as they changed. No longer was she in a winding forest of thick trees and fog, but now an open field of grass with its boundaries obscured by mist, the forest at her back. She didn't know how far it stretched on because of the white mist, but could tell it was too overgrown and dry to be farm. At the far edge of her field of vision, she could see a few figures walking off into the mist. They moved too quickly for her to make out any distinct features beyond "human shaped".

"This is a dream." She told herself, finding power in those words. The morning before leaving to do this was so vague that she could hardly remember it, along with the trip to the park with Jun. All of that was so surreal she couldn't even tell if it had actually happened. For all she knew, she was asleep in her bed at home.

"You're not dreaming." Someone answered from beside her.

"Mio-senpai, what are you doing here!" Azusa gasped in surprise. Next to her, Mio was standing there wearing her heavy winter clothes, putting gloves on over her hands. She only caught a glimpse, but Mio's hands look almost _frayed _and stained with some red substance that looked too much like blood. Her senpai was woefully pale, with matted hair and slightly glazed eyes. Azusa thought she looked like she had been out in these woods for days.

"Looking for Yui-chan, have you seen her?" Mio replied with her question, and surveyed the field in front of them, "Hm, she could be anywhere in all this fog. We'd better split up to look for her."

"Wait, no!" Azusa cried out as Mio turned to walk away, "Don't leave me alone again!"

"Huh?" Mio turned back around with a raised eyebrow, looking completely confused, "You're saying _I _left _you _alone?"

"No, that was Mugi-senpai. She just disappeared!" She flinched at Mio's surprisingly hostile tone.

From behind her, Tsumugi replied, "I didn't leave you, you walked off without me."

Azusa spun around to meet her, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean too. These woods are just so confusing, and-"

"You're blaming the woods now, Azusa-chan?" Ritsu smirked from beside Mio, causing her to spin around to meet the two of them.

"There's something wrong with them, yes!" Azusa tried to tell them, but realized just absolutely insane she must have sounded, "The trail always disappears, I see and hear things that aren't there, and keep getting lost when I shouldn't get lost."

Jun was the one to answer, standing next to Tsumugi, "Then maybe you shouldn't have gone on your own. I tried looking for you, but you ran from me."

"I did not!" Azusa was beginning to cry now, unable to take the cross-examinations from her friends, "Please, just help me find Yui-senpai so we can all go home."

"Why Yui?" Mio asked.

"Yeah. What about us?" Ritsu frowned.

"Aren't we good enough for you?" Tsumugi looked hurt.

"We try our best." Jun told her.

Azusa started backing away from them while slowly moving towards the woods, "That's not how it is! I want Yui-senpai to be here so we can all be a band again, like the old days! She's here somewhere, I know she is!"

"We don't need her, you're a better guitarist." Ritsu said.

"No, it's not about guitar playing!" Azusa countered, taking another step back. The four of them were staring at her now, and every time she blinked, they looked more and more sinister.

"She only wants Yui-chan. She doesn't want us around..." Tsumugi whimpered, and turned toward the field, walking away with Jun following her.

"No, it's not like that!" Azusa called after them, too afraid to move from her spot. Jun and Tsumugi simply disappeared into the fog seconds later. She turned to see that Ritsu and Mio were gone, with only heaps of smoldering ashes where they had been. Still, she could feel their gazes upon her in a way that triggered emotions she couldn't describe. In a way she felt like she was being watched, but at the same time she had that feeling of being the only one left in the world again. The sky overhead was turning black, signaling night coming. Azusa didn't understand. There was no way she could have been out there for more than a few hours.

Not knowing what else to do, she walked into the field, hoping that she'd catch up with Jun and Tsumugi again. The mist swirled around her, limiting visibility severely, and the grass of the field quickly gave way to dirt. No longer was she in a tranquil meadow, but an isolated sea of earth with a dark, moonless, starless night, completely surrounded by cold white haze.

_This is it. I'm either dreaming, or not in my own world anymore, _Azusa realized it had to be one of the two. She could only hope that it was the former, but it was getting harder and harder to believe that. Memories of the various news stories of young children getting lost and never appearing again in these woods flashed in to her mind, and she could completely understand it now. Still, the thought of a six year old wandering alone until he was either swallowed by the evil or devoured by his nightmares incarnate was a depressing one. It made her wonder just what her chances of ever getting out of there alive were.

She didn't know how long she wandered forward through the blackness, wondering just what was illuminating the mist and the ground beneath her. Once she found Yui though, everything would be worth it. She couldn't wait to bring her back and show her all the new things she learned on guitar, the new bands she found, and all the fun things they would do together. It was like being ten years old again. Planning out all the things you would do when your friend came to stay the night. That was exactly how Azusa felt right then. It was the only thing pushing her forward into the unknown. Plus, she was certain Yui would have stories to tell about just how she managed to get there in the first place.

"Where are you going? This is the wrong way." Sawako said, walking beside her. Azusa noted her Death Devil stage outfit, and found it strangely suiting for this environment.

"Do you know where I'm supposed to go?" She asked her old club adviser, only sort of wondering what she was doing here too.

"Not completely, but I can tell you that this is a dead end." Sawako replied, and sure enough they were greeted by a concrete wall looming in front of them. Azusa could only stare in wonder as it loomed high above them, disappearing up into the mist and stretching onwards in either direction as far as she could see in the churning sea of fog. The concrete was tinted yellow with green stains of moss and lichen, making it look like the wall had been standing there for decades. Out of place graffiti was splattered here and there from what could have been spray paint. None of it was in any language Azusa recognized though, with the exception of an English word she struggled to make out..._Nyarlathotep_... "Nothing this way, maybe we should turn around and see if the others found anything."

"I've been walking for hours this way though!" Azusa wanted to cry now, "I just need to get back to the woods. I got distracted and ended up here. I wasn't supposed to be here."

Sawako pressed her back to the wall and slumped down into a sitting position, hugging her knees close. "You really did get lost, huh?"

Azusa sat next to her, resisting the urge to cry. "Uh-huh..." Her face was turning red and she was sniffling.

Her old club's adviser placed an arm around her shoulder, holding her tight so that her face was resting against her bosom. So far, Sawako had been the most understanding of her plight it seemed. The older guitarist spoke in a soft, motherly tone to Azusa, while petting her hair. "Shh, crying won't fix anything. I miss Yui-chan too, so I'm going to do everything I can to help you."

Azusa's heart fluttered at that, and the tears slowed, "You...you will?"

"Of course, I loved her just as much as you did." Sawako replied, whispering in her ear. The sensei's other hand was resting on Azusa's upper leg, just at her thigh, the fingers tracing circles against the fabric of her tight shorts. Her hand slid down just a bit more, stroking the soft flesh of Azusa's bare leg, going over the scabbed cuts from yesterday. She took in a deep breath and whispered in the small girl's ear again, "Do you want to know just how much I loved Yui-chan? Just how much she loved me back?"

"I..." Azusa felt Sawako's cold fingers gently working their way up inside the leg of her shorts. Every fiber of her cried out in protest at the advancement, but all she could do was squeak out, "Yes."  
Sawako's hand removed itself from her shorts, much to Azusa's relief, and the older woman used those fingers to massage the areas around Azusa's neck, as she breathed in her ear, "It was before you were there. Yui-chan needed to learn how to play guitar... Do you know that story?"

"Yes, you taught her one on one."

"That's exactly what I did. " She chuckled, and pulled Azusa's small body on top of her lap, both her hands stroking up and down the sides of her body, "I was a lonely single woman, who had never succeeded at love. Isn't that sad, Azu-nyan? Yui-chan sure thought so. I be-"

"Yui-senpai would never think that way about anyone!" Azusa cried out, squirming uncomfortably in the position she was in on the woman's lap.

Sawako held her tighter, one hand cupping a small breast, squeezing tightly. Azusa gasped and shuttered from it as Sawako continued her story, "It doesn't matter what she thought then, but she must have felt some sympathy for me... Yui-chan; she was such a naïve little girl back then, not knowing really much about anything. I was lonely, and took advantage of her. Does this make me a bad person, Azu-nyan?"

Azusa couldn't speak from everything that was happening to her now. Sawako was roughly groping her breast with one hand, and rubbing her through her pants with the other. The feeling of violation made her almost want to just die right there on the spot, but at the same time she had never been more aroused. It was an unnatural sort of feeling that threatened to take over her mind; a strange mix of fear and loathing towards her situation, and the lust and longing to just tear her clothes off and frantically masturbate on the cold dirt in a sea of fog.

"It does, doesn't it?" Sawako mock pouted, and continued her story while breathing in Azusa's ear and molesting her, "She was too confused and young to know that adults like me weren't supposed to make her do things like that. Or if she did, she was good at hiding it. I made her feel my breasts first before my pussy..."

The primal sexual urge was overpowered by fear as Azusa desperately tried to get away. She didn't know what had come over her former adviser, and she was just beginning to question the logic of any one she used to know even being here with her. No matter how much she struggled, Sawako was just too strong, and kept her right there.

"...I made her touch and lick all those places, lick them as fast and hard as she could. Then it was my turn..."

Azusa felt herself growing weaker and weaker the more Sawako grabbed and had her way with her. The will to resist was fading, and part of Azusa's mind wanted to just lay back and spread her legs. But she knew that was what Sawako wanted, what _this place _wanted her to do. There had to be a way out. She had come too far to have it all end like this. She knew that if she didn't get out of Sawako's trap, then it would result in her death, or probably worse. Fighting through the weakness and how uncomfortably horny this was making her, Azusa drafted a quick plan. First it would require subtly, "S-Sawako!"

It had taken all her effort to shout that, but it had worked. Her captor was interrupted, "Do you not like my story?"

"N-No, I l-like it... a lot... and..." It had worked, Sawako had released her grip just a little, enough to allow her to completely turn around so that they were facing.

"And what?" Sawako gave a wicked grin, the face she used to frighten students when her glasses came off. Azusa planted a kiss straight on her lips, using her first as a desperate attempt to escape. Her lips were cold, and instantly Azusa felt like her very soul was being drained from her body. It was hard to stay focused, to remember what she was doing and why she was there. Sawako's tongue brushed against hers, first gently, then intruding into her mouth, feeling as cold as death itself. So Azusa did what she believed was the best course of action. She bit down on that vile tongue.

She bit down as hard as she could, locked her jaw and yanked her head back. There was a brief bit of resistance, then she fell backwards as she tore Sawako's tongue out with her teeth. The taste of blood filled her mouth right away, followed by the sounds of screaming. Azusa scrambled backwards, spitting out the bloody piece of flesh from her mouth. She managed to get to her feet and force her tired body to sprint into the fog. Sparing one last glance behind her, she saw that Sawako was gone...or had never been there.

_How could I have thought that was her! _The black haired girl's mind screamed as she got a glimpse of the winged monstrosity that had taken Sawako's place there. Apparently naked, sickly colored flesh stretched over malformed bones with wide cankered wings sprouting crudely from its back. Human sized, with a human build, the only feature its face had was a wide toothy maw that blood was spewing forth from. That was it. She was the prey among a world of hunters swimming in the fog.

The screams the thing emitted were other worldly cries of pain, piercing Azusa's ears and rattling her very bones. Exhaustion hit her almost as soon as the demon was out of view, and her short burst of energy had faded. Those twisted, wretched screams made her wish she had just let the monster have its way with her instead of forcing her to listen to that. Not to mention the fact that anything else within miles would surely hear it, if there were others. Its scream reminded her of a baby crying out, being torn apart by hyenas, with their cries mixing together to form an echoing wail.

After only moments the screaming stopped, and the fog swirled around her so thick that she couldn't even see her legs anymore. The weakness in her was making it hard to just stand, and she realized how hungry she had become in all of this. One step after another, she kept pressing herself onwards until her body would finally give out. The taste of blood in her mouth and the memory of what that tongue had felt like served to keep making her gag and dry heave as she kept going. Every step was more difficult than the last, making her wonder just how much further she could go before finally collapsing.

From the midst of the fog around her, an excited, exaggerated voice cried out, "Crunch! Tear! Splat! Like that."

Azusa nearly fainted from surprise, her heart her heart was beating like a horse galloping in a frightened frenzy in her chest. She wasn't ready for another trick this place had to offer, it would just be too much for her to take. But she had recognized that voice, like it had been heard in a distant past life.

"Stop!" Another, more frightened sounding girl replied. Those voices were all around her again, now mixed with the sounds of crowds of people talking, laughing, and walking, with crickets chirping over them all.

Then there was third voice, a voice Azusa would have recognized anywhere. This time it was Yui happily saying, "But Ton-chan's still small, so it'll be fine."

"Yeah it'll be fine!" The first person went on, who Azusa now recognized as Ritsu. There was laughter, the sound of _her own _laughter amidst it. She remembered this; it was a night they spent together at the festival. Why she was hearing it again in the fog was just another mystery to add to the pile, but it made her long to be with them again. Be with them and be out of that place. All be a band of friends who sometimes played music again.

_It's always so much fun hanging out with them._

Then there was the sound of fireworks, just like that night before. Azusa waited for Yui to take her hand, shouting and telling her to go with her, just like that night before. She even put her hand forward, waiting for a pale, slender hand to grab it out of the fog. The ground below her changed from nondescript dirt to cold water rushing over her ankles. She slipped, now walking over stones, and the water quickly rose so it was pouring past her knees. The fog began to clear just a bit, and she saw she was now standing in a river of rushing red water, illuminated by a pale moon overhead in a starless sky. Behind her was nothing, just a barren landscape of dirt stretching endlessly, but past the river she stood in was the forest again. This time it was lively; fireflies dancing around bushes adorned with gorgeous flowers.

_It's so pretty..._

_ Am I dreaming again?_

She couldn't move forward. The blood red water had frozen around her knees, forcing her in place. The bitter cold was painful, and it was almost impossible for her to keep her balance in that position. The fog faded from a pale white to a stark black, causing all the beautiful fauna to wither and die in front of her eyes. It was like some grotesque, living, sentient thing that existed only to torment and confuse her. A shiver ran down her weak back, as she heard the sounds of the decay before her eyes. A renewed terror struck as she heard a familiar monstrous screaming from a distance behind her. Stuck in place, that winged abomination could surely catch up with her and get revenge for what she did to escape its grasp. Her legs wobbled, her bladder failed her, finally soiling herself with warm liquid. That was the last thing that happened before she fell backwards into the frozen river. The sensation was mind numbing, still being trapped in a solid object, but falling through it at the same time.

Blackness overcame Azusa as she fell below.

**TO BE CONTINUED**

**(**You don't have to force yourself to review, but it's always appreciated)**  
**


	3. The Awakening

**FEEDING A DREAM**

**PART THREE**

**THE AWAKENING**

_Quick Author Note- (I don't like dramatic irony.)_**  
**

Azusa's senses reeled in confusion when something pulled her out of somewhere. She was too dazed to tell what either one was, or if she was even alive or dead. Cold hands were compressing her chest, like some crude form of CPR from someone who didn't know what they were doing. Azusa blinked her eyes open, wincing at the water in them. Above her was...No, it wasn't Yui, but it looked almost exactly like her, but Azusa knew it wasn't. Long brown hair, the same childlike facial features, same body measurements, no clothes, but Azusa knew it wasn't Yui. She also was fully aware that her own clothes were gone too, replaced by her old high school uniform.

"You're awake! Oh thank goodness. You shouldn't be out in the dark like that!" Her rescuer seemed relieved. Next to Azusa was that rushing red river, surrounded by a dead gray scale forest with a bright blue sky overhead. No sun.

Azusa tried to speak, but only coughed up some sort of foul tasting liquid. Not blood, thankfully, more like bile. After coughing, she managed to sit up, and choke out, "This...this place... I know this place..."

This Yui lookalike tilted her head, like Azusa had said something stupid, "Well yeah, this is the only place where the Darkness can't ever reach. Why would you go anywhere else? Were you looking for someone?"

"Yui-senpai!" Azusa immediately replied, and got to her feet, "This is where she's at! She has to be here. Please help me look! She looks like you, but with shorter hair and-"

"Mikomi?" She was interrupted.

"Who?" This was getting more and more confusing by the second for Azusa.

"My sister!" This strange girl tried to take Azusa's hand, but she instinctively flinched away, "I can't take you to her, because He's mad at her, because she never follows the rules and goes into the Dark without asking. He'll be mad at you too since you were in the dark without asking. If you want to be safe, go to Ulthar. They can't kill you there."

Azusa turned away, knowing this was pointless and leading nowhere. She marched off without saying anything, terrified that this girl would react negatively, or even violently. Everything so far had just been a lie or trick to make her let her guard down, and she wasn't going to fall for it again. The river next to her was frozen solid, just like her dream, and her body and clothes were completely dry too. It was hard to believe that what happened last night was even real now.

Luckily, that strange Yui-lookalike didn't go after her, but simply said, "If you do find her...tell her that I'm sorry for what I did... and that I don't deserve her forgiveness."

"Will do." Azusa nodded back, not planning to actually do that at all. Her goal was simple now, and it made her almost feel giddy. All she had to do was follow the river this way (she _knew_ it was this was) until she came to that clearing where Yui would be. She was still exhausted and weakened from that encounter with what had been posing as Sawako, but she was in the home stretch. After everything she had gone through, it was finally over; no more signs of danger. Pushing through fatigue and pain, she smiled for the first time since she had stepped into the woods. Maybe by the end of this, she would learn the secrets of these woods, and what controlled them, but part of her really didn't want to know. Demons hunted in the fog, memories echoed in empty space, black mist destroyed the plant life... Azusa was sure she wasn't in her own world anymore.

A light chitter from some sort of animal broke her out of her train of thought, startling her just a bit. Just how far had she walked? There wasn't any mist or fog, but that weird girl was gone now from sight. Azusa looked around for the source of that sound, and found it sitting atop a dead sun bleached log. Despite herself, she blurted out, "_Kawaii!_"

Sitting a few meters away was an animal hardly larger than a cat, but nothing like she had ever seen. It almost looked like a little fluffy monkey with long coarse fur, long narrow, pointed ears at the side of its head; and green catlike eyes with black pupils. The most interesting feature was its nose, which reminded Azusa of the nose of a certain kind of mole with all the little feelers around it. These feelers looked more like narrow benign tentacles that went all the way down past its tiny little mouth. It was weird but utterly adorable. Its little green eyes looked up at Azusa, wide with curiosity. The twin-tailed dreamer was just glad to find something here that wasn't trying to molest her. Something like that was just too small to be dangerous or even predator against something her size. She took a step closer to it and it leaned its head forward, observing her from head to toe. It made a cute little noise like a squirrel and Azusa giggled, covering her mouth with the tips of her fingers out of habit. Like a neighborhood cat, she just wanted to pet it briefly before going on her way. Any sort of thing that would boost her dwindling spirits was needed at this point. Much to her relief, it moved just a little closer to her, eyes still focused. Those eyes were drawn to her hand as she reached out to pet it.

Before Azusa had time to even register what was happening, the thing leaped at her arm, its tiny humanlike hands grabbing around her wrists. Its weight pulled the exhausted girl down towards it, as it yanked her hand towards it, shoving her small fingers into its wide, toothy maw. Azusa screamed out in shock and pain as tiny, razor sharp teeth ground and tore at the middle and ring finger of her left hand. At the same time, she felt stupid for falling for _another _trap here. Fighting through the searing agony of having her fingers torn apart, she used her other hand to yank its little fingers off her wrists. She succeeded, but not without it leaving a light bleeding cut right before her hand. With a quick yank, she tried to free her hand from the monster. Her hand came free, but the sudden release from its grasp sent her stumbling back a couple meters, resulting with her falling on her back.

_This is it. It's going to pounce on me and chew my throat out... I'm sorry I couldn't make it Yui-senpai..._

As if only to add to her confusion, a group of creatures she recognized came to apparently fight for her. Lying on her back, she watched as swarms of house cats appeared from the way she had come, charging after the wretched little beast. Lifting her head just a bit, she watched it bound off on all fours into the dead woods as the horde of dozens of house cats went after it. Her life had been saved by the animal Yui most associated her with. Was this some sort of irony? Whatever the case, Azusa now knew not to touch or interact with _anything _here anymore.

_Now let's see how bad it got me. My hand hurts so much that I can't even feel my two fingers...I hope it didn't get me too bad. It was only a little thing so ma-_

Her thought process ended when she struggled to lift her arm and look at the damage. In place of those two fingers were lacerated bloody stumps just above the knuckle, with little shards and splinters of bone jutting out. Blood poured out at a rapid pace, spilling down her arm in streams of red. Azusa struggled not to pass out from fright then and there. There was no way to survive an injury like that with how weak she already was. Tears were billowing out of her eyes as she just lay there, cradling her mutilated hand against her chest. Those tears turned into wailing sobs; the cries of a defeated traveler.

_I'll never play guitar again like this...assuming I don't die... The woods, the monsters, the river, those all could have killed me, but a little animal is what does it! This isn't fair! I worked so hard, and I love Yui-senpai so much! How can something like this end all of it!_

She took ragged, deep breaths, using her good hand to push herself into a sitting position. Azusa couldn't spare another glance at her wounds. It was too sickening. Quickly, she wrapped up her hand with the edge of her t-shirt and held it firmly in place. It wasn't anything close to comfortable, but it sort of stopped her hand from bleeding everywhere. No. This was not the end. She would keep going until something ripped her beating her heart from her chest. It was hard to get to her feet again, but she managed. And she began again, step by step down the side of the frozen river of red. Now her step was a limp, and her pace was pathetic.

From across the river, Azusa saw Jun and Ui standing along the bank, but didn't fall for it. They looked years younger, wearing the same school uniform. Jun called to her, "Azusa-chan, just come back. It's not too late!"

"You don't know where you're going!" Ui pointed out as well.

Azusa gritted her teeth, trying to shut out the illusions, "I know exactly where I'm going!"

She passed those two, glad that they didn't pursue. It made her wonder if the first encounter with Jun in the woods, where she had been calling her name, had been real. Perhaps Jun and her were at the same point in different worlds, and only Azusa could hear her. Any random theory was as good as the next, and Azusa wasn't even sure why she even bothered trying to apply any sort of reason or logic towards anything that occurred here. Another theory was that she had died the day she went into the woods for the first time, when the thorns scraped her up. Maybe she had been killed somehow and this was just an endless dream, or even coma she couldn't wake up from. But did that mean she was invincible here if she was already dead? Azusa didn't feel invincible at all, she felt like she was going to fall over and just die at any moment now. And for some reason, she was still upset about never being able to play guitar again with her fingers gone. Something like that shouldn't have even mattered. Thinking was good though, it kept her mind away from the pain in her hand.

Beneath her, the amount of dead leaves was steadily becoming greater, making her passage much louder than it had been moments earlier. Echoing above that sound was another oddity in her never ending tale of bizarre; the notes of an acoustic guitar echoing throughout the trees, its direction impossible to discern. Azusa's spirits were renewed when she placed that tune. It was _My Love Is A Stapler_, finger picked on an acoustic guitar. That _had _to have been Yui, calling Azusa to her in her own way. She picked up her pace as fast as she could without losing her balance with all her injuries and ailments, desperate to make it to Yui.

There was one last obstacle though. One more person who wanted to stop her. Azusa's pace slowed down to halt when she met this last person standing where the forest began to clear, her destination. This girl stood there with long black pig-tails, a nondescript white shirt over tight red shorts; body covered in small cuts and bandages.

Azusa was looking at herself.

And herself said, "Why are you doing this? Why are you so willing to leave everyone you love behind to be with one friend whom the world has forgotten about? Forget about her too, and just come home where your parents miss you. Stop chasing ghosts."

Azusa took a deep breath, feeling those words set in. She replied in a voice that was barely above a whisper, "She isn't a ghost. She's my best friend and I love her and won't ever forget her."

"You could have had everything, you know that right?" The copy of her was circling her now, "You were smart, musically gifted, lots of loving friends, and you threw that all away to follow down a self-destructive path. Yui was a great friend, but she would have only held you back. This was an opportunity, and it was wasted."

"Yui-senpai didn't hold me back, she drove me forward." Azusa retorted, circling her doppelganger as well.

"Look there..." The copy pointed at a body lying at the bank of the river. Azusa was unsure how she missed that. White shirt, red shorts, black hair sprawled out wildly around them, this was a _third _Azusa, "...That's you, the _real _you, _us_. This is a _real_ place near our home, but it's been altered a little bit as you see. We have to go back, we're both the same person, so it doesn't matter who does it, but we can't leave as long as one of us wants to stay."

"I don't understand." Azusa just blinked, quickly becoming overwhelmed by this all.

Her other half stopped the circling and pacing, "We're the same person, just split by our desires. You want to be with Yui, I don't. Neither of us can leave or see Yui until we both come to a verdict."

She almost felt herself listening to this mockery, but realized this was just another in a long line of lies and tricks to mislead her. It was a clever rouse, but Azusa saw through this one, "Stop, just stop, I know this is another trick to stop me from getting to Yui-senpai. Why can't I just be with her? _Why!_"

The other Azusa's appearance melted away like water, changing height and taking on the form of another familiar face. This time it was Azusa's mother, "Azusa-chan, you don't understand, you aren't allowed to be here. Just go home, we're all waiting for you."

"That doesn't answer my question!" Azusa shouted in frustration, pulling her hair with her one good hand, "I don't care if I'm not allowed to be wherever this is! I just want to be with Yui! That's all I want now!" She unraveled the bloodied cloth around her hand and raised her grievous injury for her 'mother' to see. The woman didn't react in any way as she continued, "I gave up my other love for this; _guitar playing_. You can't just tell me to go home!"

"I didn't lie though, Azusa-chan." The thing wearing her mother's face said in an eerie mockery of her real mother's caring tone. She stepped towards the third Azusa (which was now just Azusa #2), and looked down at her, "That _is_ you, that _is _your waking body."

"So this _is_ just a dream." Azusa muttered, finding some relief in that thought. But if it was a dream, how could it have gone on so long, be so vivid, and hurt so real?

"If it is a dream, you're not the one dreaming." Her mother had somehow heard her low whisper, "I have no power to stop you, only the Pharaoh can do that, and your presence means nothing to him. Dreams are a mysterious thing Azusa-chan, and you would do well to think on that before making a decision. You and the one you seek have a strong attachment to this dream. One that is abnormal for people like you; almost unheard of. The only thing that keeps you from her is your living body, anchoring you to your home."

She didn't even understand half of that, but got the part about her physical body stopping her progress. All of this was so sudden, too hard for her to take in and fully grasp, "Why are you telling me all of this if you don't want me near Yui-senpai?"

"No, no, no, it's not Yui that's the problem. It's that you shouldn't be here at all." The mysterious information bearer placed a hand on Azusa's shoulder, "You change these woods wherever you go, warping them with your emotions until they're as dead as you feel. It affects more than you think, and for that, you can't be here any longer. Go back to the life where you came from."

_NO!_

The sudden burst of anger that one felt upon waking suddenly surged through Azusa as she bolted up right from lying on her back. She was in the woods again, but they were the way they should have been, all colored in now. It was still winter, bathing the forest in shades of dull browns and grays, but at least it looked natural again. The fog was gone, and the sounds of insects, birds, and distant cars rang in her ears. Azusa raised her left hand, and laughed aloud with relief when she saw that all five fingers were there; although blood was still stained all up her arm from the horrible wound. It was over though. That twisted foray into an unspeakable nightmare was now over. To Azusa, it felt horribly anti-climatic. Everything that had happened, it just ended abruptly after a brief explanation of things that Azusa didn't understand in the slightest. The Pharaoh? Another person's dream? None of that made any sense.

Behind her, a shallow stream of water trickled through the winter woods, and nearby was the stump of a long forgotten tree. Azusa recognized this place, this was where she had stopped to rest and found that little girl. Back at the beginning it looked like, with no progress made. So what did it all mean then? She had obviously done something right to even get there in the first place, since it wouldn't have made sense that anyone going hiking through the woods would just end up in some scary fog dimension. Or was it all just really a dream within a dream? That shape changer described it like she was dreaming in another dreamer's dream. Why were dreams so god damned confusing!

But that hadn't been a dream. That had been a _nightmare_. Azusa wanted to dream, and be at Yui's side in that strange realm of fog, just without the horrible monsters trying to eat or rape her. She wanted to feed that dream, nurture it, and never have to live in the waking world ever again now. It was a world with nothing for her, a world where she couldn't be happy again. All her old friends were memories now, and she couldn't just find replacements. Azusa had loved them all, and without them everything just felt hollow.

Down the trail, she heard Jun's frantic voice, "Azusa-chan, there you are!"

Azusa looked up from the ground, and saw her friend rushing towards her. She yawned and asked, "What time is it?"

"Three o'clock, I've been looking for you for hours!" Jun replied. She was panting from running through the forest to find Azusa, "I-Is that blood all over you!"

"I had a nosebleed. A really bad one." She lied, assuming there was still blood around her mouth from the tongue eating.

"What are you doing out here anyway? I thought you ditched me and went home, but your parents didn't know where you were at! So what were you doing?"

Azusa just looked up at the sky and replied, "Feeding a dream."

"What!"

"Nothing," She shook her head, getting to her feet, "Just fell asleep I guess. I still hurt from yesterday. Can you take me home?"

Jun rolled her eyes, "Jeeze, Azusa-chan, you're so weird. Fine, I'll take you home, but you completely ruined today."

"Sorry about that, I guess." The twin-tailed dreamer shrugged, and followed her back. Her mood was better than it had been since her dream the night before. It was a sense of enlightenment, like she knew exactly what she was supposed to do. This body, _her _body was merely hindrance towards her goal. She went home with Jun, who left after realizing that Azusa wasn't in a sociable mood. Perhaps saying one final farewell to Jun would have been the proper thing to do anymore, but Azusa found herself just not caring anymore. Nihilism was flowing through her veins likes a narcotic that clouded her mind. Nothing in this physical world had any value anymore, and it had taken her seven months and a trip through a nightmare to understand. The world she lived in was so miniscule, an insignificant speck amidst an infinitely huge universe that her mind couldn't even begin to concept. She had been given a gift, though. A chance to explore what existed beyond all time and space; to see worlds unseen.

And above all, she could do it with her best friend at her side.

The chance to exist in a realm dreamed by a being that would never awaken. She just had to take it slow and careful to avoid the infinite amounts of dangers that existed there. Even if it almost killed her, Azusa wanted to go back to that world and find Yui once and for all.

That night she wrote a note, saying a final goodbye, explaining that she couldn't stay here any longer. No reason was given; that wasn't important. Azusa felt guilty for leaving all of them, and couldn't bear to look her parents in the eye one last time or say any sort of goodbye in person. She left her note on the dining room table, silently sneaked into her parent's room and grabbed a small lockbox from under their bed as they slept. Just as silently, she left the house with it under her arms, knowing exactly where to go.

She returned to those miserly woods a third and final time, determined to reach the end of her quest once and for all. The previously hostile wilderness provided her safe passage as she marched confidently to that clearing. It was a merging point between worlds, so she thought; the place where the living fog would roll in and distort space around her. Normally it looked just like a little stump against a narrow stream, but a wide clearing in that other world. This was where she last found Yui, seven months ago, in some strange merging of the two. The stream hadn't been there before, which had thrown off her original attempts to find the place.

The sky was filled with twinkling stars aligned with a bright, pale moon. The woods were dark, but not dark enough to obscure her trek, and there was no sign of the ghastly mist. It didn't take long to find that little spot against the stream, and she promptly sat down and took one last look at those living stars. Azusa could feel the energy of the place around her, raising the tiny hairs on her arm. The sound of a finger picked guitar was far off somewhere: quiet, hardly noticeable, but was the sign she needed to continue. Azusa opened the lockbox, which was always left unlocked, which made the whole purpose of having one completely void.

Her father's Glock 17, the gun metal gray key to another level of existence. Already she was beginning to have second thoughts. What if she was wrong? What if that whole thing about her physical body inhibiting her was a lie? What if death was just a null oblivion? What if all this did was trap her in that nightmare forever?

Compared to the potential benefits, it was a chance worth taking, "Been nice knowing me..."

A single loud BANG resounded throughout the woods. A few people who lived nearby faintly heard it, but just assumed it had been kids lighting off fireworks or something. Azusa's lifeless body slumped over, falling just at the edge of that little stream of water. Blood flowed freely from her mouth and the hole in her head, already attracting all sorts of detestable insects. By the time her body was found, she would have been a breeding ground for all sorts of maggots and beetles.

The sound of a guitar playing rang in Azusa's ears as she fell through darkness, no longer feeling any part of her body. Her ear was attuned enough to realize that someone was picking chords, basic chords that didn't go past the third fret...

_Just like how Yui plays! Where are you!_

Now the feeling of hardwood was on her back, and florescent lights burned her eyes from above. Another dream? The last dream? Azusa blinked the light away and tried to figure out where she was. A decent sized room with a wooden couch sporting blue cushions, a table made of school desks with chairs resembling the couch, and a blank white board...It was her old club room. Beyond the windows, colors swirled against a black space of nothingness. She blinked once more, and saw that the person she had worked so hard to find was sitting on that couch, playing guitar.

"Yui-senpai!" Azusa nearly screamed, jumping to her feet and throwing herself at her friend. Yui jumped in surprise, and caught Azusa in a tight hug. Neither of them had clothes, but Azusa could care less. Already, tears of happiness were spilling out as she held her best friend, relishing how whole Yui felt again, "It's over, I finally found you!"

Yui held her tight as she cried, putting the guitar down on the ground, "I didn't want you to come here like this, Azu-nyan. Why did you hurt yourself to see me? And if you had gotten too hurt in the woods, you wouldn't have ever been able to dream again!"

Azusa realized how guilty Yui sounded, and tried to explain her motives, "That doesn't matter, I'm here now. At first I just wanted you back in my life, and I thought going through the woods would do that...but I understand now, Yui-senpai, I understand what it was all for."

"Don't cry, Azu-nyan." Yui was trying not to herself.

Azusa sniffled once, and did her best to continue without losing herself to tears, "I did all of that to learn that nothing mattered, and that I didn't know anything. But I do know something, and I something _does _matter. _You_ matter, Yui-senpai. You matter to me more than anything. I would do it all again to be with you forever!"

"We're together Azu-nyan..." Yui whispered in her ear, "...Forever and always."

After her journey through her nightmare, and destroying her body with a bullet to the brain, Azusa finally got what she wanted. It didn't matter where they were now, and Azusa would never quite understand. Between them and that guitar, Azusa didn't care if they were now in Hell itself. Her crying stopped and she lay with Yui on the couch, wondering just what to say, or if words even mattered anymore between them. Then she remembered something, "On my way here, I met someone who said they knew you..."

"Who was that?" Her long lost senpai asked. Azusa was struggling to get past how articulate she was, and how much more mellow she sounded. Still, seven months in a place like that would do things to a person.

"I don't know, but they wanted to say that they were sorry, and understand if you don't forgive them." Azusa replied.

"That was nice of them." Yui didn't appear to pay much mind.

Another thing popped into Azusa's head, and she sat up and grabbed for the guitar on the ground. Even though she had only lost her two fingers for a few hours, it felt amazing to have them back, "Oh! I wrote you a song while you were gone, and I've been waiting to play it for you!"

"Azu-nyan wrote me a song! I'm so excited to hear it!" That was the Yui she knew. Azusa smiled and struck the first chord for the song of her heart (C major), and using her fingers. The notes rang out across the cosmos, heard by all those who cared to listen. Together again, free to dive into the vortex of chaos that was the universe, hand in hand. Azusa didn't know what her new life here would be like that, but she was with the person she loved once again, and ready to face anything. They couldn't just stay in one place, but luckily Azusa already knew the name of a safe haven. The world _Ulthar_ rang out in her head, a vague destination in the bizarre dreamscape they now resided in.

Yui sang along by just humming along to the tune, and Azusa soon joined in. Just the two of them humming to some arranged chords, but it was the greatest moment of Azusa's existence up to that point. That would become their song, and they would play it wherever they went from now on. Hand in hand they would face the unknown and unseen of what resided beyond time and space, facing all its eldritch horrors and wonders without fear. But mostly they would sit together playing guitar and drinking tea, wondering if any of the others would ever come there too, or if it was possible. Any thing was possible at that point. They held each other close and tight, spinning through space and time into swirling chaos. Azusa found this to be better than anything she could have imagined, living a dream forever. If she was brave enough to face the eldritch mysteries that lurked in the unknown, she felt she was brave enough to just voice her feelings.

"Yui-senpai, I-" She began.

"You don't have to call me senpai anymore." Yui giggled.

For some reason, Azusa found herself blushing, "O-Okay, Yui...chan. But, I wanted to say I love you, and I never stopped loving you while you were gone. You probably already knew that, but I wanted you to hear it from my own lips. Don't feel bad for what happened to me, and what I did, because I couldn't be happy without you."

"Azu-nyan, I-"

Azusa placed the tip of her finger over Yui's lips, silencing her, "Ssh, just hold me for a little bit, that's all I want right now. It's just the two of us now, nothing else matters."

It was just two of them in a world where whatever they imagine could happen, it was just like the old days...but better.

**THE END**


End file.
